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The one pavilion that combined all of the themes of Epcot Center together: technology, transportation, communication, food, health, energy, living in future habitats on the land, undersea and in space

Unofficially, it was seen by GE and Disney as a sequel to the Carousel of Progress

The characters have grown up and moved out

When proposing ideas for New Tomorrowland in Disneyland in 1990, Imagineering prepared a proposal to essentially combine CoP and Horizons

The show’s theaters would present the concept of the “great, big beautiful tomorrow” starting with “Looking Back at Tomorrow” from the Horizons pavilion at EPCOT Center and continuing through an “1890s Victorian style American living room;” “the kitchen of a 1940s modern home;” “a vacation villa circa 1990;” “an undersea research station;” “a space station orbiting the Earth;” and conclude with the “urban habitat…desert habitat…and space scene” from Horizons. http://auction.howardlowery.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=5322846

Design

1979 was a look at the history of technology and a large exhibit space for GE of today and tomorrow

Jack Welch became chairman of GE and he didn’t think the pavilion was futuristic enough

The name changed in 1980 to “Century 3” and the design was changed to focus on living in the future with technology

GE signed for sponsorship in October 1980 and changed the name again to “Futureprobe”

The building was designed to look like a spaceship

The rear of the building was “show ready” to be seen from the proposed LVB Monorail

By the groundbreaking in February 1982, the pavilion was named Horizons

Ride

Guests would load in a transport terminal of the future

guests would board a car that seated four people and faced left of forward motion

The ride started by looking back at dreams of the future over the centuries

Included looks at Jules Verne’s idea of a flight to the moon

A future look at Paris from 1920s

“Easy living” with the robot butler, which was the ‘80s as seen from the ‘30s

looking back at tomorrow with movies and television specials of yesteryear

The future from the ‘50s where the future was “kinda fun”

Then head into bringing our dreams to life: “If we can dream it, we can do it” - the transition between past and future. Two Omnimax theaters that showed images of the space shuttle liftoff, landsat photography of earth, microprocessor, crystals for use in microelectronics, liquid space (underwater), DNA chain, the sun

21st Century living - An “achievable Future” of 2086 (When Disneyland opened, Tomorrowland represented the future in the year 1986)

Meet the narrators at their futuristic home

Dad is playing a futuristic piano

Mom is chatting with her daughter on a holophone

Head to the agricultural engineer daughter’s home on the farm in the desert

The daughter is overseeing the harvest of l’orange (half lime, half orange)

Head into the house where her husband and son making a birthday cake

then to the den where the daughter is talking to her boyfriend who is working on his submarine

Then go to the maintenance bay where the boyfriend is working on the submarine

Continue on to the underwater city where children are getting ready to go deep sea diving

Then head to space where we see a space colony where the son and his family live

A family just arriving from the shuttle

Crystals growing in space

Join the family in singing birthday to the grandson via hologram

Then it’s time to head back home: you got to vote on the flight path back to FuturePort

Space: Omega Centauri

Land: Mesa Verde

Sea: Sea Castle Resort

Additional history

Closed in December 1994

Reopened in December 1995 because Universe of Energy and World of Motion were both closed

Was the first Space Mountain to open, although it was originally planed for Disneyland as "Space Port”

Designing started in 1964, but Space Port was stopped because of Disney’s death

It was revived because of the popularity of WDW with teens and young adults; the Magic Kingdom needed a thrill ride

Disney Artist John Hench drew the original concept art of the SM exterior

It was Walt who wanted the roller coaster to be in the dark so he could have precise control of the lighting and to project images on the interior walls.

Selling RCA on an attraction to spend $10 million sponsoring the attraction was key to the project

In the book “The Disney Mountains” author Jason Surrell writes about Marty Sklar’s efforts to sell the idea to RCA

Disney had an agreement with RCA in 1970 to do all the infrastructure communications for WDW

The contract stipulated that if Disney could come up with an attraction RCA would be willing to spend $10 million dollars

The original pitch was a new version of Mission to Mars that took people inside a computer

The meeting with the RCA CEO, Robert Sarnoff went horribly. Sarnoff sat at the head of a long conference table, and couldn’t hear the presentation and couldn’t see the materials. He asked his staff “who are these guys?"

That’s when Marty and John Hench regrouped and moved forward with the Space Mountain plans

The pitch for SM, Sklar brought Card Walker, Disney’s CEO to the meeting, as he and Sarnoff knew each other. They also insisted that Sarnoff sit in the middle of the table so he could see and hear.

The story for the SM presentation focused on communication, as RCA had pulled out of the computer business shortly after the first presentation. The attraction would still consist of a rocket ride through space, but guests would see RCA satellites orbiting in space and after the ride, guests would visit the Home of Future Living which showed off the latest RCA home entertainment products, and some future products, and the last thing guest would see before exiting was themselves on color TV

RCA approved the sponsorship, and the project started

The project was lead by John Hench and Marty Sklar, and George McGinnis and Claude Coats - of pirates of the Caribbean and haunted mansion fame— were on the team

Former astronaut Gordon Cooper, commander of Mercury 9 and Gemini 5, became a member of the Disney team and provided personal consultation to help insure the authenticity of Space Mountain.

The roller coaster was developed by Arrow (who built the Matterhorn) and Disney

It’s made up of 2 tracks: Alpha (to the left) and Omega. Alpha is 3,196 feet long while Omega is 10 feet shorter.

Top speed is between 28 - 35 mph

Ride duration 2 minutes, 30 seconds

It’s a pure gravity ride with no boosters or retarders; there are only braking zones. If the ride stops, the brakes are simply released and the trains coast back to the station

There are 30 trains (15 for each side), with two cars per train, with 3 people per car (although originally, the cars sat 4 people per car; this was changed in 1989)

The exit was the Home of Future Living from 1975 - 1985 and pretty much included everything that was presented to RCA during the pitch meeting:

featured the theme song "Here's to the Future"

Guests stepped onto the Goodyear Speedramp and went past scenes of the Home of Future Living (from Widen Your World)

Started outside on the patio with the father on a lounge chair looking at a briefcase size TV screen on a business video call

Then, inside the rooms were a series of white hexagonal modules with white, yellow, orange, and brown decor

First, the nursery where a toy clown held a camera pointed at the baby; the camera signal was sent to the other screens so the family could monitor the baby

Next, the family room shows the grandmother taking a two way TV pottery lesson

Then, the Rec room, where a teenage boy took in some snow skiing on a SelectaVision simulator while the younger brother assembled a model rocket via televised instructions

Back outside, a boy is at the front door, talking to the mother inside via camera

Again inside, the kitchen shows the mother and a neighbor sitting in front of a large TV wall unit reviewing an online catalog system, along with a picture in picture of the boy at the door

Then, the teenage daughter’s bedroom watching a SelectaVision videodisc movie on a large screen

Finally, was the entertainment center where a young girl and boy watched a football game on a wall-sized screen

Then, you travelled under the train tracks on the speed ramp until you reached the incline and the TVs where you could see yourself

In 1985, it was changed to RYCA-1 which showed what life might be like living in a space colony on another planet; the sets are pretty much the same as they are today. They were changed to reflect sending packages across spatial distances using teleportation when FedEx took over sponsorship in 1994. And during the 2009 refurbishment, it was changed to the current design of Starport 75 and promoting different destinations around the universe to which Space Mountain's rockets could take them

FedEx added TVs to the waiting area inside and played SMTV which had news clips from around the galaxy